Rick Warren and Invoking Teh Inauguration

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As you may have noticed, a small war has erupted at the mothership over the nature of the invocation at Obama’s inauguration on January 20, 2009. Specifically, whether or not it is appropriate for Obama to have Rick Warren participate. The general FDL position is that it is not appropriate to have Warren participate because he is a discriminatory bigot, to the LGBT community, and others.

I agree wholeheartedly with this position. But I have a more fundamental question.

Why is any of this, Warren, Lowery, or any other religious figure, an official part of the inauguration? If a religious aspect is desired for private parties later etc., fine, but why should overt religion be sanctioned as part of the official initiation of a Presidency? No matter how it is configured, it is going to be offensive to many groups inherently; i.e. those whose religions are snubbed, and those such as the LGBT community, for instance in relation to Warren. Probably some groups somewhere will be similarly put off by Joe Lowery; and, of course, the non-believers and/or atheists don’t like any of it.

"America" should not have a preacher. If individuals wish to consider religion vis a vis their government, that is most excellent, but it should be and by individual choice only. God is not for a nation to possess, nor claim the mantle of; that is the province of the individuals in the nation to do, or not do, on their own.

Why is this part of the official inauguration? There is no need to have the new government sanctioned by religion from the get go. The new President, President Obama, will serve and represent all Americans, of all stripes, colors and beliefs; excluding and alienating so many at the outset seems antithetical to the spirit, even if not the letter, of Constitutional separation of church and state, equal protection and inclusion.

Invoke the spirit of the Constitution instead of of having an invocation at the Inauguration.

Obama’s Success: Must Have Been The Shoes Before Him

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America, indeed humanity, stands on the verge of a seminal moment in history. A turning point that inalienably alters our existence in so many ways, writ large and small, that it is hard to grasp. We are about to to inaugurate a black man, Barack Obama, President of the United States; a job that is still, despite all, the singularly most important and powerful position in the world. How did we get to this moment?

It is time to talk about race, and in a positive and constructive manner, not the sinister and tawdry below the surface baiting style so prevalent during much of the McCain/GOP campaign we just, thankfully, concluded. What has led us to the point where Barack Obama is about to give his first inaugral address; what paved the way for that? It just might, at least partially, be the shoes.

Specifically, the shoes worn by transcendental black athletes like Tiger Woods, Michael Jordan, Venus and Serena Williams and Arthur Ashe. Athletes not just dominant in their sport, but in sports that were previously the exclusive province of whites. In the case of Tiger, the Williams sisters and Arthur Ashe, it was their sports; sports that were once, and still remain, not just white, but elite. In Jordan’s case, although in a sport long integrated, basketball, he became literally the face of the league and the most marketable and recognizable persona in advertising in the whole world.

One of the great gifts to sports journalism, really the literary field as a whole, in the last half century was the late Dick Schapp. A truly enlightened and renaissance man. One of the many enduring gifts Schapp left is a weekly sports roundtable discussion every Sunday morning on ESPN, The Sports Reporters. Not just any sports reporters, but giants that, like Schapp, transcend the field of sports with a view of the larger frame of the world. Journalists like Mike Lupica, Mitch Albom and Bob Ryan. On the October 5, 2008 edition of The Sports Reporters John Saunders, who has led the The Sports Reporters since Schapp’s untimely death, gave a fascinating parting shot (It is the approximately last two minutes of the linked podcast, which is very easy to fast forward to).

Saunders’ take was that Obama has had a surprisingly smooth and seamless run for the Presidential roses considering the historical context of black and white racial undertow of tension. Further, that one of the reasons for this is the way that certain black athletes, specifically Tiger Woods and Venus and Serena Willaims have come to be the singular calling cards of their sports, golf and tennis respectively. Saunders posits that the significance is immense because both golf and tennis have been historically not just the domain of whites, although that they have been, but elite and powerful whites. The country club set; power brokers that really run things. Elegant and compelling individuals, Woods and the Williams; black in skin color, magnetic, inspirational and colorless champions in conduct and ethos. Read more →

Napolitano To DHS; Skeletor To Be Buried

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images.thumbnail.jpegAs most of you know, I firmly supported Janet Napolitano for Attorney General in the new Obama administration. It looks as if Eric Holder will be the Attorney General instead, but CNN has just announced that Napolitano will be the choice for Department of Homeland Security. Here is the Reuters headline:

U.S. President-elect Barack Obama’s top choice to lead the U.S. Department of Homeland Security is Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano, CNN reported on Wednesday, citing multiple sources.

The Democratic governor, a supporter and campaigner for Obama’s presidential campaign, had been reported to be on a short list of people to fill cabinet posts in the new administration.

Assuming she makes vetting and is confirmed, Janet will make a fantastic Secretary of DHS. Some of the skills and abilities I pointed out as qualifications for AG will serve her very well as Homeland Security.

Napolitano is well versed and experienced with constitutional law and civil rights, having been mentored as the hand picked protege of one of the country’s great Constitutional scholars and authorities, John P. Frank, one of the two legal fathers of the Miranda decision. She has sizable long term experience not only as the Arizona Attorney General (a huge office), but also as chief executive of an entire state government as Arizona Governor. Of critical significance, she was the US Attorney for the District of Arizona for six years under President Clinton, prior to her terms in state office as Arizona’s AG and Governor.

The job ahead is going to, in addition to the legal skills, require someone with Federal experience and the established ability to manage a giant bureaucracy. Janet Napolitano has a very rare combination of background and experience to fit that bill. The attention to bureaucratic detail, not just in Washington DC, but in all of the 93 US Attorney district offices is going to have to be immense. Wholesale institutional change needs to be implemented, and malefactors rooted out.

Janet Napolitano has this ability in droves over any other candidate discussed for AG. She is spectacularly good at bureaucratic detail and getting big entities working as an efficient team. Janet has an incredibly feel good aura around her, and it is contagious to those working with and for her. She is a master team builder, both in terms of efficiency and competence as well as morale and attitude. Janet has already exhibited her turnaround skills in her Read more →

Obama’s Long Arm/Short Arm Stiff Of The Netroots

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When I was first sworn into the bar, I had the good fortune of being mentored by an experienced and wise senior partner. One of the first things that he taught me in dealing with other parties was to be aware of the long arm-short arm syndrome. This is where a person has a long arm for taking, and a short arm for giving.

When it comes to the netroots, Barack Obama has the long arm-short arm syndrome. He has taken much from us in terms of support, voice, momentum, money, footwork and energy. Obama has given little, if anything, in return to the netroots. Unless you count disdain and scorn. And pokes in the eye with a blunt stick.

Let’s go through a bill of particulars, starting with oh, say, today:

Eric Holder: Eric Holder is a horrid choice for Attorney General. Looseheadprop knows this and gave her take earlier. Holder conspired with his friend Scooter Libby to get a pardon for Marc Rich; Obama must have been mighty impressed by that. Or maybe he was more impressed with Holder’s ability to skate his Republican/Bush bigwig friends at Chiquita Brands for their complicity in paying millions of dollars to rightwing death squads in Colombia that murdered union leaders and workers. Uh, and then Chiquita paid off the other side. While they were probably smuggling narcotics for the CIA. Another excellent entry on the resume for Obama I guess. Oh, and Holder was not very popular with the career rank and file at DOJ when he was there; he was seen as very divisive. So we got that going for us. Just what is needed for the rotting carcass at DOJ that Bush/Cheney is leaving.

In short, hey, seriously, if you like the corporate apologist, rich people coddling, torturing approving and covering, illegal wiretapping loving, breakdown in the career ranks bullshit DOJ of the last eight years, you will absolutely love Eric Holder. He will, of course, be nominally better that Mukasey. If that is good enough for you, he is your guy! Thanks Barack!

Joe Lieberman: As y’all might have heard, Rape Gurney Joe Lieberman was ejected from the Democratic Caucus, er stripped of his DHS Chair, …. Oh, hell, Harry Reid kissed the sucker on both cheeks and thanked the back stabbing little prick for being magnanimous. Read more →

Dick Invites Joe to See the Man-Sized Safe and Industrial Shredding Machine

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I know that it was really neat to see how the Bushes welcomed Barack and Michelle to their new digs. The Obamas looked so glamorous and confident and all that.

But this is the meeting I want to see first-hand:

The Vice President-elect and Dr. Jill Biden have been invited by Vice President Cheney and his wife Lynne to the Naval Observatory on Thursday at 5:15pm for a private meeting and tour of the residence.  The arrival of the Vice President-elect and Dr. Biden will be pooled.  The meeting will be closed press.  An official photo of the Bidens and Cheneys will be released following the meeting. 

I mean, how do you think Jill Biden will respond when Dick tells her husband to go fuck himself?

Black Man Wins Back Reagan Democrats

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Stan Greenberg has noted something we here in MI have been quietly smiling about since last Tuesday: Obama won Macomb County, MI by 8 points, with 53.4% of the vote. This is the county, remember, which Greenberg dubbed the home of the Reagan Democrat after Ronnie won those white, working class, previously loyal Democratic voters with 66% of the vote. Here’s how Greenberg described the phenomenon earlier this year.

In 1960, Macomb was the most Democratic suburban county in the country as John F. Kennedy won handily there, garnering 63 percent of the vote. Four years later, Lyndon Johnson increased the Democratic vote share even further, winning 75 percent of Macomb voters. But over the next 20 years, these voters turned on the Democrats, culminating with Ronald Reagan taking 66 percent of the vote in 1984.

What’s most remarkable about Obama’s win is that he outperformed Clinton in 1992, Gore, and Kerry in the county. This, among voters who, when they first turned against the Democratic Party, named race as one of the reasons.

But this is not 1985 when Macomb voters also shared a deep middle class consciousness, but focused on minorities and government aid for blacks, Welfare and above all and affirmative action as major grievances and part of the squeeze. As Greenberg noted in Middle Class Dreams, the Democratic defectors of 1985 “expressed a profound distaste for black America, a sentiment that pervaded almost everything they thought about government and politics. Blacks constituted the explanation for their vulnerability and for almost everything that had gone wrong in their lives.”

But this is a very different Macomb and these are very different times. Welfare, crime, reverse discrimination, blacks and Detroit were never mentioned in the discussion of why the country and state are off track, except for some asides about Detroit’s pathetic mayor. That was not what they were angry about or felt had much impact on their lives. Sometimes it is as important to pay attention to what is not said, as to what is.

When we give Macomb voters a choice to explain the current plight of the middle class, over half focus their resentment on global trade, CEOs who “care more about their companies than their country,” and politicians who “support trade agreements backed by corporate special interests,” Read more →

Palin Suggests She Doesn’t Want Uncle Toobz’ Seat

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She notes that she didn’t do too well under the "white hot" spotlight of DC.

MATT LAUER: Let me talk about your future. There is a possibility that, in the state of Alaska, there will be a special election. If Ted Stevens goes back the Senate, and his colleagues decide to banish him, then the state of Alaska has to come up with a new senator. And it is conceivable that you could run for that seat. Are you interested?

SARAH PALIN: I’m not planning on that.

MATT LAUER: That’s a good politician’s answer. Most people say, "I’m not planning on it." But the people of Alaska said, "You’d be the right person"?

SARAH PALIN: No, I’m not planning on it because I think the people of Alaska will best be served with me as their governor. Making sure that we are prudently spending the tax dollars. That we are making sure that our resources are being developed responsibly and ethically. And all those things that are a part of my agenda as governor. I think the people of Alaska appreciate me where I am today as their governor.

MATT LAUER: But wouldn’t there be some sense that you’d just seen what it was like in the White House spotlight. And doesn’t some part of you, I mean, I read an article about you that said you’re pretty ambitious. Doesn’t some part of you want more of that?

SARAH PALIN: You know, when you talk about that white hot spotlight– that’s not really attractive to me. Because, again, you know, you gave some examples of– look what that white hot spotlight…

MATT LAUER: It’s a double edged sword.

SARAH PALIN: …does to one’s family, you know. And does to one’s credibility and record and word. So that’s not the attraction to me. The attraction is where can I best serve people whom I work for and am accountable to. Right now I am accountable to the people of Alaska. They hired me as their governor. I’m blessed to have the opportunity that I have to serve them as governor. It’s a great job. I love it. [my emphasis]

Shorter Sarah: I’m going back to Alaska where I can hide my incompetence, ethical issues, and ignorance behind my pretty face. Also.

Read more →

Update on the Underwear Audit

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Sarah Palin engaged in a bit of parsing when asked last week whether RNC lawyers were coming to audit the clothes she scammed the RNC out of. Rather than denying the claim outright, she insisted the RNC lawyers weren’t coming to her house. [exchange starts at 3:00; my transcription]

Reporter: Does the RNC have lawyers coming up to look at the clothes, inventory the stuff?

SP: The RNC’s not coming up, nobody’s coming up to look at anything. There is an inventory of clothes being done so that the RNC is held accountable for all the dollars that were spent, but … Who said that attorneys were coming up to my house to pick up clothes?

Reporter: I think the NYT reported that, the LAT.

SP: The NYT evidently is wrong, because it’s not … it’s not happening. Nobody’s told me that they’re coming to my house to look through closets … to look through anything. [my emphasis]

Note how far Palin’s parse–"coming to my house"–is from what the NYT said.

Republican National Committee lawyers were likely to go to Alaska to conduct an inventory and try to account for all that was spent.

And from what the LAT said.

Reporting from Phoenix — Sarah Palin left the national stage Wednesday, but the controversy over her role on the ticket flared as aides to John McCain disclosed new details about her expensive wardrobe purchases and revealed that a Republican Party lawyer would be dispatched to Alaska to inventory and retrieve the clothes still in her possession.

This is a classic Palin denial: denying something that was not alleged (except, arguably, by my pithy title), while not denying the main point of the allegation.

And, as it turns out, Palin and the RNC are still haggling over what is where and who owns what.

Palin and John McCain’s campaign faced a storm of criticism over the tens of thousands of dollars spent at such high-end stores as Saks Fifth Avenue and Neiman Marcus to dress the nominee. Republican National Committee lawyers are still trying to determine exactly what clothing was bought for Palin, what was returned and what has become of the rest.

Palin’s father, Chuck Heath, said his daughter spent the day Saturday trying to figure out what belongs to the RNC.

"She was just frantically … trying to sort stuff out," Heath said.

[snip]

Read more →

The New Landscape in Alaska for the Wasilla Wonder

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Back when I argued that Palin would probably not be the Republican candidate for President in 2012, I noted how much the landscape had changed for Palin in Alaska.

That’s true, first of all, because the exposure of the campaign will bring some unanticipated setbacks to her.

[snip–note, I cut out a prediction that the personnel board investigation might be damning, which turned out to be dead wrong]

At the very least, her claim to be a reformer in Alaska won’t fare well.

Then there’s the fact that she’s got at least two more years as governor before 2012–and there is no evidence that she is any more competent at governing than George Bush. So long as oil prices remain where they are, she’s going to have a difficult time meeting the increased needs of an inflation-wracked Alaska.

Here’s a really good inventory of the ways in which life for Sarah will change in Alaska. My favorites:

4 The Legislature

Palin’s two-year record was much dissected during the presidential campaign. Some Alaska lawmakers complained she was disengaged at times. Democratic allies who helped with her priorities are now unhappy with her new national partisanship and the campaign’s meddling in Troopergate. Her unhappiest critics have been Republicans who resented how the "maverick reformer" painted dissenters as part of the "good old boy" network.

Back in Juneau, she’s likely to face a new source of friction: budget-cutting tensions due to declining oil revenues.

[snip]

Palin also has work to do with some of her constituents. Big anti-Palin rallies in Anchorage during the campaign were unprecedented — Frank Murkowski never stirred that kind of passion. Coming home to vote in a Carhartts jacket shows she’s thinking along those lines. (Or was she buffing her small-town, anti-fashion image for a national crowd? More second-guessing.)

5 The natural gas pipeline

With the nation sliding into recession and state oil revenues plunging, the gas line seems more important than ever to Alaska. Crossing the next big pre-construction hurdles would give Palin a big achievement to trumpet.

But there are plenty of perils in the next two years. The looming challenge involves the so-called "open season" — persuading the oil companies, through tax incentives, legal pressure or superior poker strategy, to commit to ship their gas reserves through the line.

Read more →

Steve Schmidt Doesn’t Blame Palin

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picture-56.thumbnail.pngWell, to his credit, Steve Schmidt isn’t blaming the Wasilla Wonder for McCain’s loss. In fact, he looks to the Palin selection as a victory (though he doesn’t name her specifically), insofar as it reversed what Schmidt describes as Obama "running away" with the race until her selection.

And I’m very proud of the fact that when Senator Obama came to opening up the lead and running away with this race, in August, when he returned from his trip to Europe, that we were able to halt his momentum, and to figure out a way to get ahead in the race by the middle of September, which is something that nobody thought was possible for us to do. We needed to, at a strategic level, at our convention, excite the base, appeal to the middle, distance ourselves from the policies of the administration, and to, um, recapture the reform and maverick credential that had been whittled away. And, that strategy was succeeding, and it worked until there was an economic collapse, and I’m proud of the fact that John McCain got up and fought every day, in very trying circumstances.

But even in this statement, he betrays self-delusion. McCain’s Palin spike–and Palin’s favorables–reversed before the financial crisis hit hard; Lehman filed for bankruptcy on September 14 and McCain’s "fundamentals of the economy are strong" comment was on September 15, but McCain peaked closer to September 8 or 9. I first noted Palin’s falling favorability ratings on September 12, and by September 16, the fall in her favorability was noted by others. 

The polls reflected the early success of her strategy. In the three days after Palin joined Team McCain–Aug. 29-31–32 percent of voters told the pollsters at Diageo/Hotline that they had a favorable opinion of her; most (48 percent) didn’t know enough to say. (The Diageo/Hotline poll is conducted by Financial Dynamics opinion research; it’s the only daily tracking poll to regularly publish approval ratings.) By Sept. 4, however, 43 percent of Diageo/Hotline respondents approved of Palin with only 25 percent disapproving–an 18-point split. Apparently, voters were liking what they were hearing. Four days later, Palin’s approval rating had climbed to 47 percent (+17), and by Sept. 13 it had hit 52 percent. The gap at that point between her favorable and unfavorable numbers–22 percent–was larger than either McCain’s (+20) or Obama’s (+13).

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